Page 57 - Alco HD-DVD

One of the bigger pieces of news that popped up at the Total Hi Def press event was that other manufacturers, besides Toshiba, would soon be making HD-DVD players. One of those manufactures happened to be exhibiting at CES, a Chinese company named Alco.

Alco didn't have a flashy booth, but rather was located in a meeting room off the Central Hall. When I inquired about their work on a HD-DVD player the Alco employees staffing their booth met me with blank stares and directed me to the Toshiba booth. The Alco employees assured me Toshiba would have all the information I needed. Once I arrived at the Toshiba booth, Toshiba's PR  people had no idea what I was talking about and directed me to HD-DVD booth for more information. Again, at the HD-DVD booth, no one had any idea what I was talking about when I asked about an Alco HD-DVD player. Luckily for me a Toshiba engineer happened to passing by and a PR person did the first useful thing all day and flagged him down. It was all worthwhile though as this gentleman was able to answer all of my questions.

It seems that Alco is a major OEM supplier for the house brands found at large US retailers. Alco is thus developing a HD-DVD player for this market. As part of their licensing agreement Toshiba is providing considerable engineering assistance to Alco to help them develop and manufacture the player. So if things go as planned we may be seeing cheap house brand HD-DVD players in the near future, which is a pretty exciting prospect.

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